Testing Facebook Timeline

I have no immediate idea of how I feel about Facebook Timeline. I just made the switch about 15min. ago. One thing is certain — I don’t like automatic loading. I don’t know exactly why I don’t like it, but maybe it’s got to do with reaching the end of “the page” and having more content loading. It makes sense, of course. If you scroll down all the way down, you must want to read more – but I don’t.

It’s like reading a book… reaching the last chapter to then have more chapters magically appearing.

But there must be something good, right?

The Good

It’s clean and nice looking, for sure. You get to “personalize” a lot more than you used to. See up there? It’s The Slayer. I’ve been wondering when MUBI is going to implement the optional movie header, it seems more relevant there than in Facebook.

It\s also kinda nice to see how your “Facebook Life” has played out, not like I share anything much important there any longer. But my movie watching and article posting seems to render blogging null. In terms of microblogging, I guess Facebook is doing it better than Twitter.

You can also “feature” things on your timeline, in which case it will occupy both left/right spaces making it humongous. I love that. It’s kind of like how MUBI’s Filmography works, but you know… better. That way I can feature video postings and/or movie stills.

The Bad

I’ve heard it loads slightly slower – which makes sense – I haven’t had issues with that yet.

Like I stated above, I don’t share much on Facebook from my actual personal life. I’m paranoid about my personal data and stating what I’ll be doing and where and when… this is why I’ve never actually used the Maps feature before. I don’t tag myself in a place or whatever you call it. The only thing I’ve done with Maps is say where my hometown is and my current city, but the Map shows the city incorrectly on the map.

Tiny, I know. But I’m not even allowed to move the pin, so I can’t even fix that.

I also worked with some US-based clients, so my Map shows the US pin in my map, which had no bearing on whether I moved locations or not.

I usually don’t tag my photos with places either, so all my travel pictures don’t show up in the map… that means one of two things, I have to spend a LOT of time tagging photos, or I can just not care.

Which brings me to tagging people in photos.

You know people don’t always just tag you when it’s you in a photo, they will tag you when the photo they’re posting is of your interest, to which the resulting photo has nothing to do with you. In the end your photo gallery, ordered by year, ends up of you surrounded by countless unrelated photos of not-you.

The Ugly

The first thing you will find when activating your Timeline is the message that you have to review all your shared data again in case you don’t want something to appear on your timeline.

As far as my account, I think I covered all my basis… but if something slipped, I guess I’m going to find out sooner or later.

It also kind of always bothered me that whatever you Liked on Facebook, it immediately had to be known by all your contacts, and it’s there for everyone to see. What if someone wants to be a Justin Bieber fan but doesn’t want anyone to know!?!? You can’t. If you like Justin Bieber, it will show up on your Likes.